Lessons from a Cardboard Challenge

Maze Prototype - this group went on to time students and track record on the big day!

Bowling Prototype - this group went on to craft a bowling game large enough for one person to sit inside and return bowling balls

Ring Toss Prototype - This group went on to build a very large ring toss game. It was great to see the way the worked through deciding the best tossing distance for their primary and intermediate peers. 

Ball Toss Protoype - In their arcade model this group fashioned a ball catch/ return shoot in behind their game. Fanstastic work!

Global...Cardboard...Challenge! It's amazing the excitement that can be generated by three words on your class calendar. The excitement only grew as the day approached. Its now been about two weeks since the event, and the lessons learned are still fresh on our minds. The excitement over its success has not faded*.

I've really enjoyed hearing the way students reflected the build up: the launch, meeting Caine (through his YouTube videos), the ideation process, prototyping, these aspects of the process have been cited again and again by students as significant points in their learning journey. One student even described the commotion at the cardboard pile as something from "The Hunger Games". I smiled and cringed all at the same time!

Teamwork. It's truly a pleasure hearing students describe the joy they found in working with a classmate - and they didn't even get to choose which one ;) One group that stands out in my

mind too is a pair that struggled to see eye to eye. We weren't sure the duo would last until the main event, but in our last afternoon of building, when the pressure was really on, they made it happen. Decisions were made, tasks were accomplished, and laughs were shared as they tested their final product!

Craftsmanship. I think the lessons learned are evident in student's ideas about where they could go next. Many students discussed strength and stability as lacking in their initial structures, but they weren't at all defeated by these challenges. Repairs on the day of our event were minor - almost every group had accurately gauged the strength that would be required to sustain hours of play; and furthermore, students finished wanting to take on bigger more elaborate building challenges. Fantastic!

*I am still being approached by parents who speak of what this challenge inspired in their kids. The number of cardboard creations in our community has risen exponentially ;)

Our #cardboardchallenge was a huge success! http://t.co/RNNqGS0lPZ Thx again @Em_Swenson @mwmedvinsky @terrieichholz @imagination #sd57
— Steve Chase (@Chase_Steve) November 1, 2014

Learning Together: Feedback and Critique

As I grow and learn with PBL my assessment practices evolve too. I was excited to share my learning at a recent regional Professional Development conference. Here are the slides from that presentation:

Learning Together: Feedback for Students and Teachers from Steve Chase

For me one of the biggest take-aways as I've pushed to blend good assessment practices with PBL as that strong peer assessment allows us to really "activate learners as resources for one another" (an idea Dylan Wiliam really got me thinking about). If students are getting deep with their questions to their peers then they can really push one another's thinking. How powerful is that!

The second big lesson in PBL based assessment, and really throughout classroom teaching, is that structure and routine are so important. The assessment based application of that in my classroom is critique protocols like this one from BIE. We actually distinguish between "clarifying" and "probing" questions in that clarifying is for us the audience, and probing is to push the thinking of the presenter. Questions first, before giving feedback is so key here in that it forces us to really consider the presenter and their dilemma and try our best to help them on their way with our feedback. Our tendency is to want to jump in with feedback and comments, but its so much more valuable to listen, clarify, and probe before we get thinking about feedback.

Its been great learning about feedback and critique with my students, and its helping our learning very step of the way. What forms of assessment are you using in your classroom? How do you vary your assessment practices with different tasks? What does assessment look like when there are different products being created by different groups or individuals?

PBL Learning Team

A group of Teachers met today at Kelly Road to discuss Project Based Learning. We've ordered BIE's PBL Starter Kit as a resources and will be working through that together as a way to inform and evaluate our practice. We've also started a blog dedicated exclusively to the group. Its online here. 

One of the things we did was share our questions. Here's what we came up with:

• What questions do we have?
• How does PBL work?
• How does PBL benefit our students?
• motivation
• engagement
• success
• building core competencies (thinking, communicating, personal and social competency)
• Definition of “The Educated Citizen” (we heard this recently and understand its in the BC school regulations, but do not know where)
• literacy and numeracy foundations
• understanding rich content
• core competencies
• How do we cover curriculum through PBL?
• What is “true PBL”, is there “true PBL”?
• How much information is required before students jump in?
• How much Teacher Direction/ Guidance is needed?
• How do we facilitate and let students drive?
• What role do driving questions play?
• How do we come up with really good driving questions?
• What skills and experiences do students bring to projects?
• How do different disciplines come together in projects?

We agreed its the highlighted questions that matter most. Its the difference this way of learning makes in the lives of our students that matters most. We want to be intentional about evaluating our practice based on the difference it makes for students. We are excited to be learning together!

What questions do you have about PBL?

cross posted at: http://sd57learning.blogspot.ca/

Talk of Change - Embracing Project Based Learning

change_thoughts, a photo by MMcDonough on Flickr.

I gave my first Professional Development workshop yesterday on Project Based Learning (PBL). While I've talked to Colleagues, Parents, and Community members about PBL, this was my first chance to have a deeper, focused dialoug with educators about PBL. 

I was very cognizant in putting it together that I wanted to create opportunities for rich conversations and sharing of ideas, activities, and strategies. I borrowed and adapted questions from David Truss's presentation "7 Ways to Transform Your Classroom". The questions participants discussed together and shared thoughts on were a powerful part of the day, in my opinion. 

Selling anything, though, is not easy. As George Couros points out, we need to be strategic if we want to help others embrace change. George poses three questions that we can answer for Educators as we present change. Let me share my thoughts on them as it relates to PBL:

• How will this save me time?
• Such a valuable question for Educators. I want to acknowledge that adopting and settling into new Teaching practices takes time and energy, we all know that. For me the investment pays off in the product, and we'll get to that in a minute. In my experience the payoff with PBL is in two places. First, I save time preparing discrete tasks. My projects are almost always chunked into pieces that stretch over 2-6 hours of class time. So, once students are engaged in a new activity we roll with it for a few days, allowing me to do much more guiding, facilitating, informal breakout workshops, and formative assessment. Secondly, I save time in assessment. PBL lends itself beautifully to AFL practices that look a lot like students developing ownership by understanding where they are at and where they are going in their learning. This requires coaching and practice, but does not require that I collect small pieces of work daily, or even every few days to document the small steps in their learning journey. I should say to that my context is also a BYOD program. This saves a huge amount of time for me photocopying discrete tasks. I've moved my project outlines to Google Drive so students have current (and ever-changing) copies shared with them and they can be set up to comment on the outline or even edit as needed. 
• We need to focus on different, not more
• Yes. Some of the shifts I've been cognizant of in my practice as it related to PBL are in the ways I synthesize and summarize information, share resources, and share my expertise. As I move to PBL I fully desire to shift my instructional methods from Teacher centered to Learner centered. It strikes me as odd that so often we stand up and synthesize and summarize content for students. We need to teach students to synthesize and summarize content. If we are too worried about covering the content to let the students summarize it for themselves then perhaps we are trying to cover too much content (and I don't mean to get too involved in the debate over covering content here, I am more interesting in suggesting that this is one way that PBL is different and not more). My argument on resources is very much the same. Students need to be able to effectively find and critically curate content online. We are doing them a disservice if we find it for them, and we are doing them an even greater disservice if we do not teach our students to use a variety of resources. So we shift from finding and curating and sharing resources for our students to having them find, curate, and share their own resources. Lastly, PBL comes with a shift in expertise. Methods of Inquiry seek to involve community and experts outside the school. Although I'm not there yet in my practice, efforts to do this have been rewarding. I believe the same can be said about the learning community that exists within the classroom. Prensky writes about a Partnering pedagogy where we are all Teachers and we are all Learners. We need to shift our practice enough to allow students to embrace the roll as the experts that they are and are becoming.  
• Is this better?
• I believe so. In the presentation I respond to the "Why?" question with three arguments: because of shared experiences, because of shared findings, and because of shared understanding of best practice. There's a lot to unpack there, but I'll leave that to the presentation itself. After reading Couros's post the piece of this I feel I missed was the way in which its better for me. Ultimately I am most satisfied as a Teacher when the Learners I'm working with are most satisfied in their Learning. To that end, yes. PBL has allowed for deeper, richer, more meaning learning for my students and left me more satisfied in my Teaching!

Do you agree? What burning PBL questions are on your mind? Does PBL save you time? What shifts has it come with in your practice? Is it better for you and your students? What conversations are you interested in having as you consider change?

Logo Contest: Lessons from an early project

As one of our first few projects, and one with a focus on community building, we ran a logo contest early last year. We used the project to introduce and set up some Math content related to ratios, rates, and proportions (Math 8), as well as similar figures (Math 9). Science outcomes related to Scientific Literacy, and English outcomes related to Media awareness were also tied in through related assignments. The curricular ties were strong. As one of our first projects, though, this project stands our in my mind mostly because of what I learned from it.

One of the things I wish I had done differently with the project is to have started the logo design aspects sooner. Since then I've done a few design projects with a colleague who regularly runs with a two step research process for design work: first, a search for a variety of designs that students collect in a document; then, once a few favorite designs are chosen, a second search and collection takes place for a large number of designs related to the favorites from the first round. Drawing inspiration from other's logos would have given students an excellent springboard from which to begin sketching and drafting their logo designs.

The second aspect I learned from was the level of voice and choice in the technology used. We left students with options as to how they created their logos - we had everything from Google Sketch Up designs, Paint designs, Gimp designs, and Google Draw designs. Many students were exploring these drawing programs for the first time. Students were given ample drawing time, and were also given tutorial videos to better their understanding of Gimp. Because there was a range of new tools being used, though, students were not given quality feedback on their design work. In the end, however, the students with the greatest knowledge of the design tools produced the best logo.

The end product, as seen above, turned out really well. Of course, this wasn't the only product of the project. Students were motivated in the work, and enjoyed the process of pitching and voting on a logo. Math outcomes were tied in nicely to logo drafting, Science outcomes dovetailed into a "companies in the news" assignment, and English outcomes were met by a media assignment alongside the logo. As a community builder the project served its purpose well, and it was very cool to have the program represented by a piece of student work.

What were your take aways from your first experiences in Project Based Learning? Are there elements of the process you focused on early on? What kinds of projects or tasks would you use to introduce PBL in your classroom?

Making Feedback an Event

What does feedback look like in your context? How has giving and accepting feedback been modeled in your experience?

Peer Feedback is a powerful classroom tool for a variety of reasons. It helps foster a collaborative culture, exposes students to varying ideas and perspectives, serves as a form of positive peer pressure, and gives students an opportunity to put their best foot forward as they prepare their work for feedback. I believe feedback can also be used to teach content, and I want to improve the way we do feedback in my classes so we can maximize its benefit for our learning.

In this case students had prepared sketches of the models they were planning on building and animating to bring mitosis or meiosis to life. The models will have a QR code attached linking to a video which will explain the model and bring it to life either visually or orally. Although many of the sketches were not fully developed I believe students benefited from thinking through their plan and creating their sketch as well as by looking at the plans and sketches of others.

What I really enjoyed about this round of feedback was that it was very much an event (and for my purposes an excellent form of formative assessment). Students were asked to come with their sketches. Sketches were then touched up to ensure that they were self explanatory to viewers who were circulating by for 3 minutes at a time. Students then added to their sketches notes to guide the feedback. They also added comments to let the viewer know what they liked about their work, what was tricky, and what they thought they might do differently (a suggestion from a student-parent in my PLN, thanks Greg). Feedback then proceeded in 3 minute rounds (a time chosen based one total time available, but it actually worked quite well). This countdown timer was used to add an edgy, funky, fun structure to the event. Students enjoyed it, and agreed that it was comfortable, beneficial, and improved their knowledge of the content.

As we continually seek to improve the quality of feedback one of Dylan William's suggestions (from "Embedded Formative Assessment") I've enjoyed is to collect the post-it feedback afterward and post is on the board. Students are then encouraged to look at all the feedback and vote on which pieces are most useful to the reader.

At the end of the day I want the feedback experience to be valuable enough that students come prepared, and participate to the best of their ability to their own benefit and the benefit of their classroom. So, how can we do feedback better?

Why I Love Project Based Learning

We spent our first two weeks of the school year working on a Sundae Project. The project was a huge success on so many levels. I want to share why I found the project, and consistently find Project Based Learning so rich.

From the launch to the debrief students were engaged in this project. We introduced it in a overly serious manor, describing why its important for us to start the year establishing a sense of priorities, structures and processes for projects, habits for successful teamwork, and common language around assessment and assessment practices. We then showed this video and handed out the project summary (and lightened it up)!

In my mind this project exemplified deep learning, and here's why. True, students were only assessed on two Cross Curricular Competencies, Thinking Competency as well as Social and Personal Responsibility, but the learning was so much greater than that. Here were some of the learning highlights for me:

• Students became better team players, as everyone took a role in their project, and as teams worked on making decisions together
• Students introduced one another to new collaborative technology as Grade 9's showed Grade 8's how to use Google Drive and Documents
• Students learned empathy as they planned a sundae menu together. I overheard one fantastic conversation in a group that was divided over whether to serve toppings with nuts or not. Half the group thought they could work around allergies while the other half did not. After some back and forth one student worked up the courage to share a personal story illustrating her point of view. She was persuasive and the group came to an agreement. Excellent decision making!
• Students were shown a new application of Google Spreadsheets. After a quick workshop on formulas using cell references teams jumped in. Even though tax calculations were presented as an optional challenge many teams went for it.
• Students demonstrated financial literacy and number sense as they carefully shopped three stores and over 100 options to stretch their budget the farthest in making up their Sundaes. Many teams asked for more options. Teams also had to determine serving sizes and the number of servings per container, and unit conversions were frequently required. 
• Students came together as a learning community through sharing their ideas and opinions in a non-threatening, fun project
• One team demonstrated fantastic scientific literacy as they discussed serving sizes, when it was appropriate to use mass, and when it was appropriate to use volume. 

Professional Learning Plan 2013/2014

Flickr (http://bit.ly/15BvNGX)http://bit.ly/15BvNGX)

After diving into PBL with both feet last year I've been trying to focus my efforts this year and be strategic in my practice. Today was our School Planning Day at Kelly Road and we were tasks to choose on of the 8 District Goals (Assessment for Learning, Data-Driven Evidence for Learning, Cultural Competencies, Social and Emotional Learning, Poverty and Student Learning, Differentiation/ Universal Designs for Learning, Enhanced Learning Through Technology, Supervision of Instruction/ Mentorship and Training are the 8 presented this morning)and develop a Professional Learning Plan relating to one of the goals. As the year goes on we will have a chance to spend time with others on staff working toward those goals.

My plan is to focus on the PBL process this year by targeting critique and developing a critique protocol with students. Here's the full plan:

Steve Chase’s Professional Learning Plan 2013/2014

My Learning Intention:

Will a class-created peer critique protocol improve students ownership of their learning, use of one another as learning resources, and understanding of course content?

Criteria:

• Students will agree that peer critique was comfortable 80% of the time
• Students will agree that peer critique was beneficial 80% of the time
• Students will agree that peer critique furthered their understanding of course content 80% of the time

My Plan:

• Develop peer critique language and structure with students (protocol)
• Use peer critique at set points in projects to allow students to present their work to peers and receive feedback
• Survey students each project to see if peer critique protocol is meeting the criteria

Questions:

• How can we structure critique sessions so students feel comfortable sharing their work?
• How can we structure critique sessions so students feel the time is beneficial?
• How can we structure critique sessions so it is rigorous in terms of content?

Descriptive Feedback:

I plan on using Beth Wilcox as a resource in building the critique protocol, but this inquiry is largely based on my students response to this as a practice, so their feedback is essential.

Self and Peer Support:

I’ve met and discussed feedback and critique in broader terms with a small group of teachers on staff and would appreciate the opportunity to meet with them in the future if possible.

I would also love the opportunity to explore more Project Based Learning resources on my own or with others. A few that seem particularly relevant are from www.bie.org: “PBL for 21st Century Success”, and “PBL Handbook”.

Ownership and Where:

I will be posting updates on my blog (http://chaselearning.blogspot.ca/), but would also be happy to share my learning with peers.

Student and Parent Survey on PBL and BYOD

This month wraps up the first year of our Project Based Learning (PBL) Choice Program, the Northern Learning Centre. In the last few weeks of classes we gave students and parents the opportunity to share their perspectives on Project Based Learning as well as our Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model. Here's what they said (click here view the .pdf in its own window):

Landscape Architecture Project Comes to a Close - Here is the Project Outline

Our final science project in our Project Based Learning Choice program was a school garden. We started with the plan to have every student planting and experimenting with veggies, but the project naturally became differentiated. Some students had to explore an automatic irrigation system, while others explored composting.

Their work is displayed on our KRSS Garden Blog.

Defining BC's New Cross-Curricular Competencies: Part 1 - Communication

http://www.sd20.bc.ca/tl_files/images/bcedplan_logo_rounded.jpg

This year I've been on an exciting journey toward a more holistic approach to education. I firmly that we as educators need to ensure that we are developing the whole child, and we are developing their potential in such a way that they can apply themselves wherever they choose in the future. That takes more than content knowledge.

My Teaching partner and I have made a concerted effort to embed the BC Ministry of Education's Cross Curricular Competencies in everything we do. Our students have developed rubrics on these skills, have self assessed them, have been assessed by us and others, have told stories of ways in which they've demonstrated them, and are now using them as labels for their blog posts. In our upcoming report cards we will be including our students own comments on their competencies and their own personal goals. We are excited and encouraged to look back at what they've come up with.

I am proud to say that I have also been invited to participate in a working group to help define these draft competencies. The Ministry of Education is welcoming feedback on the current plans for Transforming BC's Curriculum. I encourage you to check it out and provide feedback to them directly, or let me know what I can pass along on your behalf.

Curriculum conundrum

One of the question's I keep coming back to in considering the change afoot in education is: how do we find balance between "the curriculum" and "21st century curriculum"?

This question will require ongoing assessment in years to come as education programs change and evolve in keeping with our revolving culture and society. Many aspects of a 21st Century curriculum, I believe, need to be addressed directly.

At the back of my Math class I have posters for each of the skills we "learn" in Math: skills like creativity and problem solving, mathematical reasoning, estimation and mental mathematics, using technology, making connections... and there are more. So I ask - shouldn't these be front of the room skills? Shouldn't we spent more time worrying about these skills and less time worrying about exactly how many questions a student just got correct or incorrect?

Logistics in a 21st Century Classroom

• I've read about a number of schools that have created learning spaces that are very conducive to collaboration and communication. I'd love to see areas dedicated to experimentation - equipped with webcams; areas dedicated to recording audio and video - with some sound buffers; grouped tables for lessons and break out spaces galore!
• Would/ could parents attend monthly meetings? Meetings every term? What would be reasonable yet sufficient to create relationships that foster enhanced student achievement in a radically new environment.
• What will be the balance between 21st century skills and 20th century curriculum? Is it okay to lean toward the here and now?
• How will KRSS ensure the program supports the necessary technology to make such a technological classroom possible? Bandwidth? Print access?

Tools for 21st Century Learning

• Moodle for wikis, blogs, discussion forums (This is the page for the Science and Technology 11 Course I am Teaching (Spring 2012))
• Diigo bookmark groups (This is my personal library, but what I like about Diigo is students could be contributors to "groups" of links and thereby create their own class lists of resources to use together)
• Google Docs for writing, collaborative presentations, etc (This document was created collaboratively as a learning activity to help our Education 446 class at UNBC learn about community resources in First Nations Education and also to experience Google Docs)
• Google just gets better and better. I just discovered their "forms" which allow students to create online surveys, and results to be viewed live. 
• Google+ ?
• You Tube Channels and Playlists (These are some sample playlists I set up on my You Tube Channel so students could view them)  
• 
  

Projects Ideas for 21st Century Classroom

These are not necessarily original ideas, but are inspired from other websites mentioned in this blog. 

• debates
• math games fair
• science fair
• organize school events
• meetings
• ongoing blog of experience 
• mini math lessons via video (ex, algebra tiles and linear equations)
• democratic elections (for positions of responsbility in the classroom/ school/ at meetings)
• committees
• organization of school and community events, clubs, teams, fund raisers (student plan, organize, run, and reflect on events)
• ambassadors to other schools (teaching math games, conducting science demos and/ or projects with students, presenting technologies to help young readers, demoing math manipulatives)
• periodic news papers/ broadcasts
• I see the progression in a 21st century classroom very much one of a gradual release of responsibility. I think it would work well to start with activities where everyone is responsible for learning the same material, but presenting it in their choice of way, and/ or a series of activities where everyone is responsible for learning different material, but presenting it in common ways (so as to familiarize themselves with methods of demonstrating learning, provide exemplars for future use, and evaluate the relationships between the type of knowledge gained, and the method of demonstrating learning)
• After reading some of the information on Innovation Unit I've been thinking about a few new projects that would have a local focus, and a local impact. I would love to see some community partnerships into some of these projects. Ideas include; A project on sustainable trail building. The trails could be mountain bike, ski, or multipurpose, but would include research into trainbuilding techniques, local flora, fauna, topography, microclimate, and use; A second local project along the same vein I've been thinking about it is one on winter backcountry use. This could include studying weather patters, snowpacks, avalance gear and technology, GPS technology, and winter survival skills. The specifics of the projects would be entirely up to the students, but our goal as a learning community would be to create local partnerships and produce a product that could be shared with the community.
• A day in the life of ______________ (a project where students really research a career of their choice and report back to their classmates)
• Wikipedia creations (students find something they have expertise on and create content to add to wikipedia)
• Environmental Stewardship (student teams create, design, and implement projects to help green their school and make it a better environment for the life that exists in and around it)
• Documentaries/ Commercials/ Promo Videos (students create videos to promote Prince George/ their favourite book/ a novel they've read that's been turned into a movie...)
• School News/ Radio (students create broadcasts to be shared with the school/ community)
• Technology You Need (students research and market emerging, cost saving technologies to local businesses, VOIP phone?, Google Reviews, Twitter, Urban Spoon)
• Winter Frisbee Golf Course/ Golf Course Used for Cross Country Skiing/ Skate Park/ Indoor BMX park? (Students create their own piece of the park as part of a course the class would put together)
• Build a trail project (students work together to design a sustainable mountain bike trail with no net impact on the local ecosystem)
• Backcountry safety (students create PSAs to help teach younger students the value of backcountry safety)
• Here's another site with a host of "Challange Based Learning" (CBL) Projects teachers internationally are developing and implementing. The CBL format is analogous to PBL, but with its own unique process and Apple spin. 
• http://www.challengebasedlearning.org/
• Tweet Up where students take on roles as characters (for example, this could be science based and students could take on the roles of historic scientists; alternately, this could be socials based, and students could take on roles as 
• Class Elections where students have to campaign and run for roles in class government, modeling their platform on a certain party, individual, the position they are running for
• Toy Building Project where students design toys research, design, and send children's toys to an underprivileged community in BC (possibly floating toys to go along with Science 8 Water Unit).